You know how children make us be better people. One night my seven year-old, Rebecca, showed me the light agin.
Startling, her ice blue eyes and the shining black hair she liked long. I would not call it quite “wavy,” but it was not quite straight and tended to make “wavelets.” My lovely girl, you know? Oh, the joy of brushing her hair. You have been a father?
It was the music.
Late.
She was asleep on the couch and I was on the carpet in front. A typical arrangement for us. Easily she could overlook my shoulder and look at the pictures as I read. Television we would watch together this way. The fire I could easily attend. I thought she was asleep. PBS had The Ninth on! I switched to that channel and used all our playroom’s sonic tech to create as deep an experience as possible.
It is about life, you know, The Ninth?
Literally. Birth. Childhood. Youth. Youmg. Middle-aged. Old. Dead. Reborn.
Beethoven was one intense dude.
But Rebecca must have woken up to see me weeping through the climax of the Fourth Movement.
She asked, “Daddy, why are you crying?”